India and Indians have a great week in sport

Believe it or not, the headline is the gospel truth. You’re wondering where this comes from, especially after England completed a rout of India in cricket. Well, there’s a lot more than cricket. According to TAM data, football, for example, is the most viewed sport after cricket in India. Just to give you an idea on where football is vis-a-vis cricket, cricket reach was 176 million compared to football’s 155 million. Take a look (at the bottom) at the top five non-cricket sports in India for TV audiences: While we’re a disaster when it comes to playing football, being ranked 158 in the world, the data above tells us Indians like watching the sport—and taking advantage of the fact that football is the most popular sport in the world—by investing in big football clubs. Tony Fernandes, a Malyasian, took over the English Premier League side Queen’s Park Rangers earlier this year. His partner, owning 33 percent of the club was Lakshmi Mittal. Last year, Venky’s took over complete control of another Premiership side, Blackburn Rovers. [caption id=“attachment_87329” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“For many Indians, sports is not limited to cricket alone. Beawiharta/Reuters”]  [/caption] This weekend, QPR, promoted to the premier league only this year, demolished Wolverhampton 3-0, while Blackburn Rovers stunned Arsenal with a 4-3 upset. A little over a month from now, India will host the first F1 race in the country. It’s not a sport for the weak of heart or pocket; F1 needs big bucks to keep the machine going. Do the Indian F1 organisers whinge and moan when it comes to paying duty as the BCCI does? No. “If required, as per the law of the land, JPSI will pay customs duty and taxes etc. for the temporary import of equipment. The estimated value of this equipment is about Rs.150 crore and the final duty payable on this will be approximately Rs.8 crore,” says Jaypee Sports International (organisers of the Formula One Indian Grand Prix) managing director Sameer Gaur. The Indian Grand Prix – not a sport at which Indians excel in – sees an Indian team owner in Force India’s Vijay Mallya. Mallya has reason to cheer; Force India is doing reasonably well this year. “Improvements to the VJM04 in recent months have allowed them to make a step forward in performance and resulted in the team scoring more points (14) than anyone other than the top three squads in the two rounds leading up to the summer break,” says ITV. An F1 race in India, an Indian owned team – all that was needed was an Indian driver. Hero Motors, who sees a hero in every Indian, sees one in Narain Karthikeyan, whom they have chosen to sponsor by backing his Hispanic Racing team. A race in India, an Indian owned team, an Indian driver and, now, an Indian brand as one of the six sponsors – Bharti Airtel. In hockey, the Indian team, despite, rather than because of, the management of the sport in India, won the Asian Champions Trophy beating Pakistan. Moving onto boxing, “Nineteen boxers have been named in the list of probables to represent the country in the AIBA-World Series of Boxing (WSB) starting in November this year,” says DNA. Those boxers who make the cut are expected to earn at least Rs. 10,00,000 lakh per annum each. In badminton, Saina Nehwal is undeterred by her quarter-final loss in the World Championships. “I have not played any tournament since the World Championships (in August). I have been training really hard and feel I can give a good account of myself,” she told Mail Today. Currently ranked fifth in the world,the Hyderabadi said that her main aim was to get back into the top three,” she told the newspaper. In tennis, despite losing in the first round of the US Open, Somdev Devvarman reached his career high ATP Rank of 62 in August , slipping only to 69 last week despite his first round loss in the US Open. That’s not a bad week for India and Indian investments in sport. Sometimes, we in media need to remember that there are sports beyond cricket. As the data above shows, consumers already know it.  * WWF, WWE, etc.